199 ideas
| 16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
| 18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
| 17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
| 4036 | What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver] |
| 18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
| 18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
| 15547 | Negative existentials have 'totality facts' as truthmakers [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
| 18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
| 18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
| 18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
| 18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
| 18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
| 18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
| 4742 | Correspondence may be one-many or many one, as when either p or q make 'p or q' true [Armstrong] |
| 16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
| 15544 | If what is actual might have been impossible, we need S4 modal logic [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 18823 | To say there could have been people who don't exist, but deny those possible things, rejects Barcan [Stalnaker, by Rumfitt] |
| 18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
| 18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
| 16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
| 12766 | Logical space is abstracted from the actual world [Stalnaker] |
| 16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
| 16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
| 16405 | To understand a name (unlike a description) picking the thing out is sufficient? [Stalnaker] |
| 18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
| 16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
| 16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
| 18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
| 8507 | Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| 18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
| 9497 | Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong] |
| 17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
| 18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
| 17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
| 7024 | Properties are universals, which are always instantiated [Armstrong, by Heil] |
| 17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
| 15550 | Properties are contingently existing beings with multiple locations in space and time [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
| 15754 | Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| 18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
| 18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
| 18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
| 9478 | Even if all properties are categorical, they may be denoted by dispositional predicates [Armstrong, by Bird] |
| 12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
| 4034 | Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong] |
| 8535 | To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong] |
| 16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
| 8537 | Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong] |
| 4444 | One moderate nominalist view says that properties and relations exist, but they are particulars [Armstrong] |
| 18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
| 8538 | Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong] |
| 4445 | If properties and relations are particulars, there is still the problem of how to classify and group them [Armstrong] |
| 18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
| 14330 | To be realists about dispositions, we can only discuss them through their categorical basis [Armstrong] |
| 16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
| 17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
| 17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
| 17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
| 18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
| 18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
| 17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
| 8506 | Particulars and properties are distinguishable, but too close to speak of a relation [Armstrong] |
| 4448 | Should we decide which universals exist a priori (through words), or a posteriori (through science)? [Armstrong] |
| 4032 | The problem of universals is how many particulars can all be of the same 'type' [Armstrong] |
| 17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
| 8539 | Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| 10729 | Universals explain resemblance and causal power [Armstrong, by Oliver] |
| 17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
| 17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
| 15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 4446 | It is claimed that some universals are not exemplified by any particular, so must exist separately [Armstrong] |
| 4442 | Most thinkers now reject self-predication (whiteness is NOT white) so there is no Third Man problem [Armstrong] |
| 8505 | Refusal to explain why different tokens are of the same type is to be an ostrich [Armstrong] |
| 8529 | Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong] |
| 4440 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' finds that in practice the construction of resemblance classes is hard [Armstrong] |
| 8532 | Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong] |
| 4439 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' says properties are resemblances between classes of particulars [Armstrong] |
| 4031 | It doesn't follow that because there is a predicate there must therefore exist a property [Armstrong] |
| 8530 | Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong] |
| 8536 | We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong] |
| 4431 | 'Predicate Nominalism' says that a 'universal' property is just a predicate applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
| 4433 | Concept and predicate nominalism miss out some predicates, and may be viciously regressive [Armstrong] |
| 4432 | 'Concept Nominalism' says a 'universal' property is just a mental concept applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
| 8531 | In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong] |
| 4436 | 'Class Nominalism' may explain properties if we stick to 'natural' sets, and ignore random ones [Armstrong] |
| 4434 | 'Class Nominalism' says that properties or kinds are merely membership of a set (e.g. of white things) [Armstrong] |
| 4435 | 'Class Nominalism' cannot explain co-extensive properties, or sets with random members [Armstrong] |
| 18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
| 4437 | 'Mereological Nominalism' sees whiteness as a huge white object consisting of all the white things [Armstrong] |
| 4438 | 'Mereological Nominalism' may work for whiteness, but it doesn't seem to work for squareness [Armstrong] |
| 14617 | Predicates can't apply to what doesn't exist [Stalnaker] |
| 17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
| 12764 | For the bare particular view, properties must be features, not just groups of objects [Stalnaker] |
| 16407 | Possible worlds allow separating all the properties, without hitting a bare particular [Stalnaker] |
| 12761 | An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists [Stalnaker] |
| 16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
| 12763 | Necessarily self-identical, or being what it is, or its world-indexed properties, aren't essential [Stalnaker] |
| 15753 | Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong] |
| 12762 | Bare particular anti-essentialism makes no sense within modal logic semantics [Stalnaker] |
| 18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
| 10024 | The type-token distinction is the universal-particular distinction [Armstrong, by Hodes] |
| 10728 | A thing's self-identity can't be a universal, since we can know it a priori [Armstrong, by Oliver] |
| 17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
| 16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
| 15542 | All possibilities are recombinations of properties in the actual world [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
| 14286 | In nearby worlds where A is true, 'if A,B' is true or false if B is true or false [Stalnaker] |
| 10994 | Conditionals are true if minimal revision of the antecedent verifies the consequent [Stalnaker, by Read] |
| 4743 | The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong] |
| 16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
| 16422 | The necessity of a proposition concerns reality, not our words or concepts [Stalnaker] |
| 16423 | Conceptual possibilities are metaphysical possibilities we can conceive of [Stalnaker] |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 16421 | Critics say there are just an a priori necessary part, and an a posteriori contingent part [Stalnaker] |
| 16429 | A 'centred' world is an ordered triple of world, individual and time [Stalnaker] |
| 16397 | If it might be true, it might be true in particular ways, and possible worlds describe such ways [Stalnaker] |
| 16399 | Possible worlds are ontologically neutral, but a commitment to possibilities remains [Stalnaker] |
| 16398 | Possible worlds allow discussion of modality without controversial modal auxiliaries [Stalnaker] |
| 11003 | The best version of reductionist actualism around is Armstrong's combinatorial account [Armstrong, by Read] |
| 16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
| 18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
| 14285 | A possible world is the ontological analogue of hypothetical beliefs [Stalnaker] |
| 15793 | We can take 'ways things might have been' as irreducible elements in our ontology [Stalnaker, by Lycan] |
| 16396 | Kripke's possible worlds are methodological, not metaphysical [Stalnaker] |
| 16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
| 16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
| 16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
| 12765 | Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker] |
| 16408 | Rigid designation seems to presuppose that differing worlds contain the same individuals [Stalnaker] |
| 16409 | Unlike Lewis, I defend an actualist version of counterpart theory [Stalnaker] |
| 16411 | If possible worlds really differ, I can't be in more than one at a time [Stalnaker] |
| 16412 | If counterparts exist strictly in one world only, this seems to be extreme invariant essentialism [Stalnaker] |
| 16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
| 6498 | Armstrong suggests secondary qualities are blurred primary qualities [Armstrong, by Robinson,H] |
| 7440 | Secondary qualities are microscopic primary qualities of physical things [Armstrong] |
| 3900 | Maybe experience is not essential to perception, but only to the causing of beliefs [Armstrong, by Scruton] |
| 4253 | Externalism says knowledge involves a natural relation between the belief state and what makes it true [Armstrong] |
| 17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
| 17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
| 17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
| 17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
| 17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
| 17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| 17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
| 7437 | Consciousness and experience of qualities are not the same [Armstrong] |
| 18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
| 5690 | A mental state without belief refutes self-intimation; a belief with no state refutes infallibility [Armstrong, by Shoemaker] |
| 7434 | Behaviourism is false, but mind is definable as the cause of behaviour [Armstrong] |
| 7436 | The manifestations of a disposition need never actually exist [Armstrong] |
| 5493 | If pains are defined causally, and research shows that the causal role is physical, then pains are physical [Armstrong, by Lycan] |
| 4600 | Armstrong and Lewis see functionalism as an identity of the function and its realiser [Armstrong, by Heil] |
| 7429 | Causal Functionalism says mental states are apt for producing behaviour [Armstrong] |
| 7438 | A causal theory of mentality would be improved by a teleological element [Armstrong] |
| 7431 | The identity of mental states with physical properties is contingent, because the laws of nature are contingent [Armstrong] |
| 7432 | One mental role might be filled by a variety of physical types [Armstrong] |
| 16428 | Meanings aren't in the head, but that is because they are abstract [Stalnaker] |
| 16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
| 17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
| 16406 | If you don't know what you say you can't mean it; what people say usually fits what they mean [Stalnaker] |
| 16404 | In the use of a name, many individuals are causally involved, but they aren't all the referent [Stalnaker] |
| 16432 | One view says the causal story is built into the description that is the name's content [Stalnaker] |
| 16403 | 'Descriptive' semantics gives a system for a language; 'foundational' semantics give underlying facts [Stalnaker] |
| 16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
| 8533 | Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong] |
| 4035 | There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong] |
| 16401 | To understand an utterance, you must understand what the world would be like if it is true [Stalnaker] |
| 16410 | Extensional semantics has individuals and sets; modal semantics has intensions, functions of world to extension [Stalnaker] |
| 16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
| 16430 | Two-D says that a posteriori is primary and contingent, and the necessity is the secondary intension [Stalnaker] |
| 16431 | In one view, the secondary intension is metasemantic, about how the thinker relates to the content [Stalnaker] |
| 16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
| 16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
| 18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
| 18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
| 14616 | A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence of individual, properties and relations [Stalnaker] |
| 16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
| 18052 | An assertion aims to add to the content of a context [Stalnaker, by Magidor] |
| 14718 | An assertion is an attempt to rule out certain possibilities, narrowing things down for good planning [Stalnaker, by Schroeter] |
| 17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
| 17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
| 18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
| 4798 | In recent writings, Armstrong makes a direct identification of necessitation with causation [Armstrong, by Psillos] |
| 17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
| 17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| 17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
| 8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| 17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
| 8541 | Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong] |
| 8540 | The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong] |
| 17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
| 16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
| 9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
| 5492 | How can essences generate the right powers to vary with distance between objects? [Armstrong] |
| 18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |